Now Discussing

The elephant in the room

Would you care to hazard a guess as to who was present when Donald Trump gave his first post-election foreign newspaper interview in the UK to The Times and former government minister Michael Gove?

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: was it Vladimir Putin?

No, go to the back of the class. You are so wrong that you qualify to be the next US Secretary of Education.

The person in the room with Donald Trump, when he gave an interview to the Times and Michael Gove was...Rupert Murdoch.

That is, Rupert Murdoch, the very left wing owner of giant chunks of the famously liberal mainstream media that you will have heard so much about.

The Financial Times said Murdoch sat through the whole interview. Presumably, the billionaire media titan did that in order to press upon his friend the billionaire property mogul the importance of thinking about the little people.

If there is one thing the financial elite think a lot about, it is the poor. They are very concerned about people less well off than them.

And if you believe that I have a very valuable degree from the Trump University I would like to sell you.

Donald loves to tweet, but after Twitter, the Murdoch empire is Trump’s favourite media outlet; he has had Sean Hannity, of Murdoch's Fox News, over more often than he's seen Melania these past few weeks.

A video clip of the interview shows Gove asking the president if the UK is now “at the front of the queue” for a US trade deal.

Not that we are desperate or anything, but we're begging you Donald...we'll crawl across the carpet and bark like a dog, if you like.

We'll go out and buy all that unsold stock of the clothes your daughter is selling, just don't hang up on us like you did Australia.

There is a consumer boycott against Trump - it is the sort of thing that will drive him crazy because his brand is based on the spurious notion that everything he touches turns to gold.

Declining sales of anything that has the word "Trump" on it underlines the (not alternative) fact that his popularity has taken a nosedive since Russia helped him win the presidency.

Ivanka Trump's fashion brand has taken another kicking after the bosses of stores TJ Maxx and Marshall's demanded staff throw out her advertisements and take down her special displays.

Her clothes have already been dropped entirely by a string of retailers, including luxury chains Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, because of a major anti-Trump boycott called GrabYourWallet.

This is troubling for Trump because you can't send the National Guard out to force people to buy Trump clothes, so he tweeted about it instead.

He wrote 'My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom.' 'She is a great person - always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!'

Well, push harder Ivanka!

Nordstrom shares rose by two points in the hours after Donald Trump's furious tweet, which will also drive him crazy.

By the way, Ivanka Trump's clothing is made in America as you would expect, because Trump is all about buying American and hiring American.